Looking for a place for my nephew to go in a couple of years. Some of his friends are going to NDCL as a group so my sister was asking if that would be the right place for him? Anyone have any insight?

I live in San Diego, with two boys playing LL All-stars (one 9-10, one 11-12) right now, and I really get into hitting mechanics, and learning what I can to teach throwing velocity.

One of my online partners in crime (an MLB scout with the Mets) says a lot of good things about Pete Berrios who is outside of Strongsville, or somewhere between Medina and Strongsville. I don't think he runs any HS team, but I understand his travel ball team is pretty well respected. I have also heard that he worked a lot with Matt Kata. Matt is struggling a bit in the MLB but he did make it to the show.

Moving out here was an eye opener. You have stud kids all over the US but the difference out here was with kids playing year 'round your above average players are much greater in number. I'll have to look into what you mean by NDCL because if I move back to NE Ohio I'll need to be doing the same research about what towns would be ideal.

Unfortunately Pete Berrios' web site seems to be down or else they forgot to renew the URL. Might need to find one of those wayback machines to get the phone number.

Actually I couldn't be more excited, as my kids will likely be playing for Brian Sipe if he sticks around as they are attending Santa Fe Christian, in Solana Beach. Not exactly Mater Dei but a very tough little school. Rick Aguilera manages the baseball team. I think they have 4 straight CIF titles in football? Small school of course but they have actually produced a few D-1 athletes the last few years.

My wife (she teaches) and two sons were at opening day today and said he gave a fantastic, very inspirational speech. They are playing Mt. Helix this year (Reggie Bush and Alex Smith played there together), as well as a couple of other big public schools. If my kids were not at this school our public school would be La Costa Canyon (Chase Budinger), who won a MNC in HS Baseball a couple of years back. Rancho Bernardo is also in our league and a tough competitor, producing Hank Blalock, Cole Hamels, and our own John Drennan if he pans out. Actually Blalock is from Cardiff where I live, but transferred to Rancho Bernardo to play for his uncle who runs their program. Poway is also in our district, as is Torrey Pines so it's plenty competitive.

I am actually looking forward to my kids attending SFC because they'll get a chance to get involved in more than one sport if they want to, whereas at the giant schools you'd better be a total stud.